2022-04-14
What Coursera's deal is"Enroll for Free" right next to "Financial aid available" -- wait, what? As of this writing, here's the deal.
A lot of Coursera courses have a free option, usually to audit (view the materials, no assessments, no completion certificate granted). Sometimes the free option even includes (some, not necessarily all) graded assignments. However, getting a course certificate requires paying in some way, which is what the "financial aid" part is about.
If the course is part of a Specialization, as of this writing, to get to the free options you have to click over from the Specialization page to its constituent course pages. The Specialization page itself will advertise the prospect of free learning, but steer you into a path that doesn't connect to it. We can probably thank a douchey business school bro for that. Same as how they advertise "enroll now, our next cohort starts today!" for courses that have rolling start dates. As a person on Reddit said, it's not disingenuous, it's "growth hacking!"
(Remember the GFX-100 TV "dish" antenna? 'Legal in all 50 states. You pay NO cable fees because you're NOT getting cable!!! You pay NO satellite fees because you're NOT using satellite technology or service!!! Works entirely via proven "RF" technology--actually pulls signals right out of the air. Instantly locks into every local VHF and UHF channel from 2 to 83 to bring you their movies, sports and special events just like an ordinary pair of "rabbit ears."')
Depending on the course, payment options may include paying a flat fee for 180-day access to it, prepaying at a discount for all the courses in a Specialization, or taking the course while paying a subscription that covers it. Specializations are subscribable (they auto-cancel when you have certificates for all the courses), or more broadly, most courses are covered by the Coursera Plus subscription. Subscriptions have a free trial period, but it's like a week.
Specializations grant a meta-certificate when you have certificates for all of their member courses and capstone project (must all be completed in the same language for some reason). There's some payment requirement here too, but they're using the term "enroll" inconsistently to discuss it, and I haven't gone into all the details of how it interacts with financial aid either. Nor have I gone into how financial aid interacts with course stuff covered by free options. Their documentation about financial aid isn't extremely clear. But when you're paying for yourself, they're very accommodating about upgrading to paid service.
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